The present invention relates to a socket for electrical parts for detachably accommodating and holding an electrical part such as a semiconductor device (called as xe2x80x9cIC packagexe2x80x9d hereinlater), and more particularly, the present invention relates to a socket for electrical parts enabling the same guide member to be commonly used even in a case of different arrangement (row) numbers of terminals of the electrical part.
As a conventional xe2x80x9csocket for electrical partsxe2x80x9d of this kind, there is provided an IC socket for detachably accommodating an IC package as xe2x80x9celectrical partxe2x80x9d.
The IC package includes, for example, a BGA (Ball Grid Array) type of IC package in which solder balls as a number of terminals are provided to the lower surface of the package body so as to protrude downward in a grid (lattice) arrangement having vertical (Y) and horizontal (X) rows.
The IC socket is provided with a socket body, a number of contact pins disposed to the socket body so as to contact the terminals of the IC package, respectively, and a guide member arranged to the socket body so as to guide the IC package to a predetermined position when the IC package is accommodated in the socket body. Furthermore, a movable member for contacting or separating the contact pins to or from the solder balls of the IC package, through elastic deformation of the contact pins, is also arranged to be vertically movable.
Furthermore, the socket body is provided with lever members to be rotatable (pivotal) about a pivotal shaft so as to vertically move the movable member, and an operation member for rotating the lever members is also provided for the socket body to be vertically movable. When this operation member is vertically moved, the lever members are rotated (pivoted), and according to this rotating motion, the movable member is vertically moved, thus contacting or separating contact portions of the contact pins, with deformation of the contact pins to or from the solder balls of the IC package.
However, in such conventional IC package as mentioned above, there are some cases of arrangements of different rows of terminals, i.e. solder balls. In order to treat such arrangements, different guide members have been prepared so as to be correspondingly mounted to the IC package, which requires a troublesome working of preparing a plurality of guide members corresponding to a plurality of IC packages having different rows of the terminal arrangements, thus being troublesome and inconvenient particularly for maintenance of parts.
An object of the present invention is to substantially eliminate defects or drawbacks encountered in the prior art mentioned above and to provide a socket for electrical parts capable of utilizing the same guide member even in the cases of using different numbers of arrangement rows of terminals of electrical parts.
This and other objects can be achieved according to the present invention by providing a socket for electrical parts in which a number of contact pins contacting a number of terminals of an electrical part are arranged in grid shape to a socket body in which the electrical part is accommodated and a guide member is provided for the socket body for guiding a peripheral edge portion of the electrical part to a predetermined position of the socket body,
wherein the guide member is formed with an accommodation space into which the electrical part is guided and accommodated and has first and second mount positions different and apart by substantially 180xc2x0 from each other, and the position of the accommodation space with respect to arrangement region of the contact pins on the side of the socket body is made variable by changing the mounting position of the guide member.
In a preferred embodiment, the guide member is mounted to a top plate of the socket body on which the electrical part is mounted. The socket body is further provided with an operation member to be vertically movable in an installed state and a movable member for displacing the contact pins in a manner that the movable member is moved through the vertical movement of the operation member and the contact pins are displaced through the movement of the movable member so as to be contacted to or separated from terminals of the electrical part. The guide member has a rectangular frame structure, the operation member has a rectangular frame structure, and the operation member is arranged to be vertically movable around the guide member.
The terminals of the electrical part are solder balls, and the socket is an IC socket and the electrical part is an IC package.
In a more structural aspect, the present invention provides a socket for electrical parts comprising:
a socket body to which an electrical part having a number of terminals are accommodated;
a number of contact pins arranged to the socket body so as to accord with the arrangement of the terminals of the electrical part;
an operation member disposed to the socket body to be vertically movable in an installed state;
a movable member disposed to the socket body to be movable in association with the movement of the operation member to thereby displace the contact pins so as to contact or separate the contact pins to or from the terminals of the electrical part; and
a guide member disposed to the socket body for guiding a peripheral edge portion of the electrical part to a predetermined position of the socket body, the guide member being formed with an accommodation space into which the electrical part is guided and accommodated, the guide member having first and second mount positions different and apart by substantially 180xc2x0 from each other, and the position of the accommodation space with respect to arrangement region of the contact pins on the side of the socket body is made variable by changing the mounting position of the guide member.
The guide member is provided for the socket body through a top plate having a mount surface through which the electrical part is mounted.
According to the present invention of the characters and structures mentioned above, the guide member has first and second mount positions different and apart by substantially 180xc2x0 from each other, and the position of the accommodation space with respect to arrangement region of the contact pins on the side of the socket body is made variable by changing the mounting position of the guide member. Accordingly, the same guide member can be commonly utilized for electrical parts having different terminal arrangement (row) numbers, and therefore, constitutional elements or parts for the socket can be reduced and maintenance working can be hence made easy, eliminating troublesome operations and the like.
The nature and further characteristic features of the present invention will be made more clear from the following descriptions made with reference to the accompanying drawings.